Construction

I have been carefully monitoring myself as of the beginning of this semester to see when I would break out into “fits of uncontrollable laughter,” as stated in my Literature and Civilization II syllabus. It’s funny (pun intended) that I’ve never actually analyzed moments when I’d laugh, or analyzed humor in general. Now I’m like a private investigator, lurking around and waiting for the right moment to pop out and say, “BOOM! You laughed!”

As of recently, the only moment I can think of in which I broke out into “fits of uncontrollable laughter” was during Lit and Civ class itself, when we read Richard Lederer’s Anguished English for the first time. The book is an English teacher’s collection of horrid yet hilarious errors people have made when writing. Our dear professor Dr. Dan Williams mercilessly put us through the painful torture of reading a comedic book out loud. Well, it was torture for me, anyway. Each of us was asked to read a paragraph from the book. I’m amazed at how cool everyone kept when it was his or her turn to read because I lost my cool quite quickly.

 

Once it got to my turn, I couldn’t control myself. I just could not read the book without laughing. Hence, laughter from the rest of the class was harder to evoke since no one could understand a thing I was saying. Laughing in the midst of reading completely clutters the flow of the words and makes the meaning of the sentence indiscernible. For example, my reading of a simple phrase would end up sounding something like, “Joan of Arc was burnt—ahahahaha—to a—ahahahaha—steak—ahahahaha—and canonized by—ahahahaha—Bernard—ahaha—Shaw.” Did that make sense to you? Didn’t think so. 

 

But, thankfully, my private investigator came out to say, “BOOM! You laughed!” Not only did I laugh, but I “broke out into fits of uncontrollable laughter” as stated in the syllabus. There! I had something I could use to complete my “fits of uncontrollable laughter” assignment!

But what caused me to laugh? The funny book. No, seriously, what caused me to laugh? Perhaps it was the so-called “Superiority Theory” mentioned in John Morreall’s book Comic Relief. Maybe I did feel superior to those people who said that Miguel de Cervantes wrote “Donkey Hoté.” Maybe each of those tidbits of English blunders made me feel a little good inside—that I was better than those people because I mean, come on, I am so good at writing and I would never ever make a mistake like that!

Until I tell my university’s news website TCU 360 that I want to take pictures of the “constriction underway at the GrandMarc.”

In that case, I didn’t laugh as hard. Sure, I chuckled a little bit; but I didn’t burst into “fits of uncontrollable laughter” as I did when I read Anguished English. Why? Because it’s a mistake that I made. I felt badly that I, a journalism major who is supposed to be good at writing, flubbed the word “construction” and wrote “constriction” instead. I didn’t feel superior to myself, so it wasn’t as funny.

Of course, the Superiority Theory isn’t true in all cases of laughter; but it does carry truth nonetheless. Laughter is quite an interesting topic to analyze. Right now, I’m paying more attention to when I laugh, how I laugh, and why I laugh. I am also checking my spelling more often.

Construction.